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      A Timeline of the Lead-Up to Eric Adams’s Indictment

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      The charges against Mayor Eric Adams stem from a broad public corruption investigation that began in 2021 and examined whether the mayor and his campaign conspired with the Turkish government that year to receive illegal foreign donations.Additionally, the federal inquiry examined whether Mr. Adams pressured New York Fire Department officials to sign off on a new high-rise building for the Turkish consulate despite safety concerns. Agents also investigated valuable flight upgrades they believe the mayor received from Turkish Airlines.It’s one of several federal corruption investigations that have ensnared Mr. Adams’s administration. Here are some key events that led up to the indictment of the mayor:Nov. 2, 2023: The F.B.I. raids the home of the chief fund-raiser to Mayor Eric Adams.Federal agents raided the Brooklyn home of Brianna Suggs, a recent college graduate who had been in charge of Mr. Adams’s fund-raising operation when he ran for mayor in 2021. Ms. Suggs was 23 years old when the mayor picked her for the job, and many Democratic officials who worked in fund-raising were shocked that he had chosen someone for the role with so little professional experience.The agents seized three iPhones and two laptop computers from Ms. Suggs’s home; they also took papers and other evidence, including something agents identified as a “manila folder labeled Eric Adams,” as well as seven “contribution card binders” and other materials, according to the search warrant documents.Nov. 2, 2023: The F.B.I. raids the homes of an aide in the mayor’s international affairs office and a former Turkish Airlines executive who served on his transition team.Investigators also searched the New Jersey homes of Rana Abbasova, an aide in Mr. Adams’s international affairs office, and Cenk Öcal, a former Turkish Airlines executive who served on his transition team, according to people familiar with the matter.Ms. Abbasova was the mayor’s longtime liaison to the Turkish community when Mr. Adams was Brooklyn borough president. Mr. Öcal was the general manager of the New York office of Turkish Airlines until early 2022.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Happens if Eric Adams Resigns?

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      If Mayor Eric Adams were to resign, New York City’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, would become the acting mayor.Mr. Williams, a left-leaning Democrat from Brooklyn, has served as public advocate since winning a special election in 2019. He was re-elected to a full term in 2021 and ran unsuccessfully for governor the next year.Mr. Williams has been a fierce critic of Mr. Adams, assailing the mayor’s aggressive policing strategy and pushing to end solitary confinement in city jails. Mr. Williams has also cast doubts about the mayor’s ability to govern amid a swirl of federal investigations.Within three days of becoming mayor, Mr. Williams would name a date for a special election to pick a new mayor, according to the city’s charter. The nonpartisan election could be held within 90 days. The city’s relatively new ranked-choice voting system, in which voters can rank multiple candidates, would be used.No public advocate has become acting mayor before. Only two mayors have resigned — Jimmy Walker in 1932 and William O’Dwyer in 1950 — both after corruption scandals. The office of public advocate was created in 1993.Mr. Williams said recently that he was exhausted and angered by the troubling headlines about Mr. Adams and his administration, arguing that the municipal corruption scandals appeared to be “the worst since Tammany Hall.”“I’m not sure how you continue to govern with, every day, more corrupt arrests, more corrupt suspicions,” he said.Mr. Adams has insisted that he will not resign. The mayor recently told reporters that more than 700,000 people had voted for him in the 2021 election.“I was elected by the people of the city, and I’m going to fulfill my obligation to the people of this city,” he said.On Wednesday, after news of his indictment was made public, the mayor made it clear that his stance had not changed.“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Mr. Adams said in a statement. “If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit.” More

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      After Just a Week, the N.Y.P.D. Commissioner Faces a Crisis of His Own

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      Thomas G. Donlon, brought in to bring stability to the Police Department when his predecessor resigned, had his homes searched by federal agents.In his first week as New York City’s interim police commissioner, Thomas G. Donlon responded to a police shooting that injured four people, including one of his own officers.He then had to prepare for the U.N. General Assembly, an annual logistical and security challenge that was compounded by deepening conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine.On Friday, trouble came for the commissioner himself: Federal agents arrived at the residences of Mr. Donlon, 71, a former F.B.I. counterterrorism official hired after his predecessor departed amid an investigation. They seized documents that he said had come into his possession about 20 years ago.According to two federal officials with knowledge of the matter, the materials that the agents sought were classified documents.For a department and a city roiled by report after report of search warrants, resignations, subpoenas and investigations by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, this latest development took a turn into the absurd.“At a certain point, we all would walk out of the movie theater because the script was just too fantastical, incredulous, and unbelievable for real-life,” Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, said in a social media post.Tracking Investigations in Eric Adams’s OrbitSeveral federal corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York, who faces re-election next year. Here is a closer look at how people with ties to Adams are related to the inquiries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      NYPD Unwilling to Impose Discipline for Stop and Frisk, Report Says

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      The department’s discipline for illegal street detentions is lax at every level, according to an extraordinary review ordered by a federal judge.At every level, the New York Police Department has failed to punish officers who have violated the rights of people stopped on the street, according to a new report — a failure that reaches all the way to the top of the force.The report, the most comprehensive independent review of discipline since a landmark court decision in 2013, found that police commissioners during the past decade have routinely reduced discipline recommended for officers found to have wrongly stopped, questioned and frisked people, undermining efforts to curb unconstitutional abuses. The report, by James Yates, a retired New York State judge, was ordered by Judge Analisa Torres of Manhattan federal court and made public on Monday.Mr. Yates was assigned by the court to conduct a “granular, step-by-step analysis” of the department’s policies and discipline governing stop and frisk, a tactic of detaining people on the street that was being used disproportionately against Black and Latino New Yorkers.The 503-page document that resulted paints a picture of an agency unwilling to impose discipline on an abusive practice that has prompted criticism that the department oppresses many New Yorkers.The commissioners “demonstrated an inordinate willingness to excuse illegal stops, frisks and searches in the name of ‘good faith’ or ‘lack of malintention,’ relegating constitutional adherence to a lesser rung of discipline,” Mr. Yates writes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Security Firm Linked to Top Adams Aide Won Millions in N.Y.C. Business

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      The company received a $154 million contract to provide “emergency fire watch services” to the New York City Housing Authority. The firm was once owned by the deputy mayor for public safety.Before Philip B. Banks III was named deputy mayor for public safety for New York City, the security company he once owned rarely did business with the city.But two years after Mayor Eric Adams appointed Mr. Banks to the high-ranking post in his administration, the company Mr. Banks said he had sold years earlier began receiving city business worth millions of dollars, according to records reviewed by The New York Times.The firm, City Safe Partners, received a $154 million contract from the New York City Housing Authority in January 2024 to provide “emergency fire watch services” in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx, records show. Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor in the Adams administration and the fiancée of Mr. Banks’s brother, the schools chancellor, sits on the housing authority’s board and voted to approve the emergency contract, records show.Mr. Banks’s business dealings have been under scrutiny at least since his phones were seized this month by federal agents investigating a possible bribery scheme involving city contracts. The phones of Mr. Banks’s brothers — David Banks, the schools chancellor, and Terence Banks, a consultant with clients who received city contracts — were also taken as part of the corruption inquiry.The investigation involving Philip Banks and his brothers is one of at least four separate federal inquiries focused on members of the Adams administration — inquiries that have rocked City Hall and raised questions about Mr. Adams’s political future. It was not clear whether City Safe Partners was a focus of any of the investigations.The company’s fortunes, however, seemed to have run in parallel with the political fortunes of Mr. Banks and another top Adams aide who was once briefly involved with the firm.Tracking Investigations in Eric Adams’s OrbitSeveral federal corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York, who faces re-election next year. Here is a closer look at how people with ties to Adams are related to the inquiries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Eric Adams Is Resisting Pressure to Oust Members of His Inner Circle

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      Mayor Adams has been loyal to longtime aides despite growing calls for them to resign. It is a trait he has shown through his career.As Mayor Eric Adams has risen in New York City politics, he has remained extremely loyal to longtime allies, elevating them to key positions in his administration. Now those ties could contribute to his political downfall.As federal and city investigations swirl around several of the mayor’s closest aides, Mr. Adams has resisted growing calls to clean house, rejecting his advisers’ focus on an exit strategy for his close aide and friend, Timothy Pearson.Federal agents seized Mr. Pearson’s phone earlier this month. In four lawsuits, he was accused of sexually harassing female subordinates; the city Department of Investigation is also examining Mr. Pearson’s role in a physical confrontation with security guards at a migrant shelter, as well as the conduct detailed in the lawsuits.At least two senior administration officials said they were pressuring the Adams administration to fire Mr. Pearson, according to people who are familiar with the matter. The mayor’s refusal to consider doing so was a key factor in the abrupt departure of his counsel, Lisa Zornberg, over the weekend.Mr. Adams also faces pressure from advisers to dismiss Philip Banks III, the deputy mayor for public safety, and Winnie Greco, the mayor’s Asian affairs director.Tracking Investigations in Eric Adams’s OrbitSeveral federal corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York, who faces re-election next year. Here is a closer look at how people with ties to Adams are related to the inquiries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      2 N.Y.C. Fire Department Chiefs Arrested on Bribery Charges

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      The officials, who oversaw safety inspections, are accused of taking tens of thousands of dollars in connection with building projects.Two high-ranking New York Fire Department chiefs were arrested early Monday on federal bribery and corruption charges that accuse them of taking nearly $100,000 apiece in a scheme to expedite safety inspections, people with knowledge of the matter said.The two chiefs, whose homes and offices at Fire Department headquarters were searched by federal agents and city investigators in February, are expected to appear in United States District Court in Manhattan later on Monday, the people said.The chiefs — Brian E. Cordasco, 49, and Anthony M. Saccavino, 59 — were responsible for overseeing safety inspections on building projects. Neither man could immediately be reached for comment Monday morning. It was unclear whether either had retained lawyers in the matter, which has been under investigation since last summer.There is no indication that the case is related to any of the four separate federal corruption investigations swirling around Mayor Eric Adams, his campaign and some of his most senior aides. The inquiry focused on the mayor is being conducted by the same agencies that investigated the chiefs, however, and also relates in part to fire safety inspections, several of the people said.The charges against the chiefs are likely to increase the pressure on Mr. Adams and his administration as it faces a welter of corruption investigations that led last week to the resignations of two top officials in three days.Tracking Investigations In Eric Adams’s OrbitSeveral federal corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York, who faces re-election next year. Here is a closer look at how people with ties to Adams are related to the inquiries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Eric Adams’s Chief Counsel, Lisa Zornberg, Resigns Amid Federal Investigations

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      The stunning departure of Lisa Zornberg, the chief counsel to Mayor Eric Adams of New York, was announced late Saturday as federal investigations into his administration expand.Mayor Eric Adams’s counsel and chief legal adviser, Lisa Zornberg, abruptly resigned — a major departure from the administration announced late Saturday night as the mayor and his inner circle face an onslaught of federal investigations.Ms. Zornberg, a former senior Manhattan federal prosecutor in the office that is currently conducting three separate corruption investigations into the mayor and some of his senior aides, has been a fierce defender of Mr. Adams over the past 10 months. She encouraged New Yorkers not to rush to judgment after the first investigation — into the mayor’s campaign fund-raising — came to light.“It has been a great honor to serve the city,” she wrote in a brief letter to the mayor on Saturday. “I am tendering my resignation, effective today, as I have concluded that I can no longer effectively serve in my position. I wish you nothing but the best.”Ms. Zornberg’s resignation was stunning, not only because of her position and the highly sensitive moment at which it came, but because of its suddenness and because it was effective immediately, allowing no time for a transition to a new counsel.Her departure came two days after the police commissioner, Edward A. Caban, resigned at the request of City Hall after federal agents took his phone in one of four criminal investigations that involve members of the administration and the mayor himself. The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, where Ms. Zornberg worked, is conducting three of the inquiries, two of which on Sept. 4 led to the seizure of phones from several top officials. The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn is conducting the fourth.Tracking Investigations In Eric Adams’s OrbitSeveral federal corruption inquiries have reached into the world of Mayor Eric Adams of New York, who faces re-election next year. Here is a closer look at how people with ties to Adams are related to the inquiries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More